had his suspicions been light to raise: nor could Mrs. Shorne perceive that there was the opening for a shrewd bodkin-thrust. Rose had got a mask at last: her colour, voice, expression, were perfectly at command. She knew it to be a cowardice to wear any mask: but she had been burnt, horribly burnt: how much so you may guess from the supple dissimulation of such a bold clear-visaged girl. She conquered the sneers of the world in her soul: but her sensitive skin was yet alive to the pangs of the scorching it had been subjected to when weak, helpless, and betrayed by Evan, she stood with no philosophic parent to cry fair play for her, among the skilful torturers of Elburne House.
Sir Franks had risen and walked to the window.
“News?” said Lady Jocelyn, wheeling round in her chair.
The one eyebrow up of the easy-going baronet signified trouble of mind. He finished his third perusal of a letter that appeared to be written in a remarkably plain legal hand, and looking as men do when their intelligences are just equal to the comprehension or expression of an oath, handed the letter to his wife, and observed that he should be found in the library. Nevertheless, he waited first to mark its effect on Lady Jocelyn. At one part of the document her forehead wrinkled slightly.
“Doesn’t sound like a joke!” he said.
She answered:
“No.”
Sir Franks, apparently quite satisfied by her ready response, turned on his heel and left the room quickly.
An hour afterwards it was rumoured and confirmed that Juliana Bonner had willed all the worldly property she held in her own right, comprising Beckley Court, to Mr. Evan Harrington, of Lymport, tailor. An abstract of the will was forwarded. The lawyer went on to say, that he had conformed to the desire of the testatrix in communicating the existence of the aforesaid will six days subsequent to her death, being the day after her funeral.
There had been railing and jeering at the Countess de Saldar, the clever outwitted exposed adventuress in Elburne House and Beckley Court. What did the crowing cleverer aristocrats think of her now?
On Rose the blow fell bitterly. Was Evan also a foul schemer? Was he of a piece with his intriguing sister? His close kinship with the Countess had led her to think baseness possible to him when it was confessed by his own mouth once. She heard black names cast at him and the whole of the great Mel’s brood, and incapable of quite disbelieving them merited, unable to challenge and rebut them, she dropped into her recent state of self-contempt: into her lately-instilled doubt whether it really was in Nature’s power, unaided by family-portraits, coats-of-arms, ball-room practice, and at least one small phial of Essence of Society, to make a Gentleman.
That evening Ferdinand had another chance. He begged her not to be upset by the family misfortune, assuring her that his own position would shield her from considerations of that kind. She listened to him, understanding him well. Perhaps—for he was coaxing soft under evening influences—the fatal kiss might then have been given, but he, bending his head to her just as the moon slipped over an edge of cloud, the tides of an old emotion began to roll in her bosom, and, by a sudden turn of the head, she received his lips on the shield of her cheek. Love saw the danger. To Ferdinand’s amazement and disgust, Rose grasped his hand, and in her frankest voice wished him good-night.
WESTWARD HO!
A bustle at the basin communicating with the river, the cheery cries of toiling seamen, the metallic clank of the revolving capstan, and occasional brief stern words of command, announcing some event of interest, I hastened to join the crowd of curious spectators.
The Albatross was about to take wing for a Transatlantic port, freighted, not with the textile skill of Manchester, or subtle strength of Sheffield, but with hundreds of precious human souls whom fair, but unhappy Ireland, could no longer feed or shelter—outcasts from the Ark urging their reluctant flight across the heaving waters in quest of some emergent Ararat;—poor unfledged nestlings, remorselessly turned out into the pitiless weather by the parent bird to shift for themselves—scant of feather, inexperienced, apprehensive and forlorn!
Yet strangers to each other, but united by the tie of a common misfortune and equally dim future, they clustered together on the littered deck, regarding with vacant wonder the busy seamen, whom they ignorantly persisted in obstructing; listening apathetically to their remonstrances, looking vaguely on the scenes about to pass away for ever; their thoughts meanwhile being far distant in the hovel of their birth, and with the desolate loved ones.
Partings there were few; most of the adventurers had already past through that ordeal: what grief there might be was subdued—manifested chiefly by a dejected silence, by the occasional utterance of an involuntary “Wirra!” or by a heavy sigh from some sad-eyed woman. There were none of the tearful farewells—the convulsive embraces of suppressed emotion, or unrestrained wailings of feeble self-abandonment, so painful to the accidental spectator. Some few of more buoyant temperament had merged regrets in cheerful anticipations, or had become oblivious of the sad past and uncertain future in contemplating the novelty of the immediate present, and had a light jest and easy smile at any one’s service. Occasionally one might be descried who had sought a temporary Lethe in the bottle, but these were exceptional cases; poverty enforcing temperance where perchance principle or prudence might not have restrained.
At length, freed from restraint, the Albatross slowly glided into the turbid river, the fluttering topsails were sheeted home, while the musical ripple round the prow directed seaward told that